For This Wisdom
by UmbriFiica
Summary: Brain tissue has no feeling, but shredding a mind is agony.
1. Shaw

Good morning! Or night, or afternoon, depending on wherever you may be. I was watching Days of Future Past a couple weeks ago and remembered a few things from First Class that had really made an impression on me. This is what it led to. I must confess that I have not watched First Class in a few years, so I'm a little spotty on exact details, but I believe I have the main points right. Tell me what you think.

Enjoy!

Erik doesn't think before he starts pushing the coin through Shaw's head, doesn't hear the desperate, pained scream of his friend, doesn't understand that Charles feels everything that Shaw is feeling. Every thought fading, every synapse failing, every twist of the coin inside his head tearing apart his mind, Charles feels it all. And yet, he doesn't let Shaw go, knowing that if he releases the megalomaniac, Erik will die. It doesn't matter that there is nothing that can save Shaw now – if he has the least bit of freedom he will make sure that Erik goes down with him. And Charles cannot let that happen. So he holds Shaw until he is dead, grasps his brain and body so thoroughly that he becomes him while that damned coin slides through skin and bone and brain tissue. He feels every organ shut down, every cell die, and if he weren't a telepath, the pain alone would kill him. As it is, his mind can still differentiate between them, can recognize that the damage is not occurring in Charles' own body. It doesn't save him from the agony.


	2. Cuba

The price of Erik's revenge is Charles' peace of mind. He has lost faith in his friend, this man whose mind can shine bright as the sun. The loss does not come from the way Erik killed Shaw, slowly and painfully, with no thought at all for the telepath who was inside Shaw's mind living every second along with him. No, Charles could have forgiven him that, has already forgiven him that. What he cannot forgive is the fact that Erik took the helmet. Not only took it, but is wearing it. He is wearing it and preaching death to their friends, their students, their _children_. Children who have seen too much of death already. Erik doesn't trust Charles to not stop him which, to Charles, means Erik is about to embark on a course that needs to be stopped. His fears are realized when Erik points the missiles back at the human fleet and again when he turns on Moira, casually flinging bullets in every direction, so blinded by his hatred of humans that he doesn't care if he injures his mutant brethren in his anger. It is perhaps a cruel sort of kindness that it is Charles who is hit, Charles who falls to the sand, Charles whose scream of pain is once again caused by Erik. If someone must be collateral damage, it should be him. After all, no one else should have to pay for the mess he started. And when he looks in Erik's eyes and says, "You did this," he isn't sure if he is referring to his broken body or his breaking heart.


	3. Hospital

Painkillers don't work right on Charles. It must be because of his mutation because it feels like his body and mind are fighting against each other. His body tries to accept the chemical relief but his brain is too busy analyzing _how_ they work to let them do their job. He can see how they should be helping, but he can also feel his severed nerve endings and torn tissues. It is a new level of awareness for a new level of pain. Only when they give him truly catastrophic amounts of medications does he slip into something like sleep. Even then, he can feel the minds of everyone around him slowly being damaged. Through the haze of agony and opiates, he can feel himself still projecting his anger, his fear, his shame. Every turbulent bitter emotion, though damped by the medication, is still being thrust upon the people nearby – the doctors, the other patients, his own students by his bedside. They should not have brought him to a hospital, there are too many minds in pain here, he can feel every one of them. And he is feeding them, an endless loop of pain and misery and suffering that is suffocating him. They should not have brought him here, where his failure can do nothing but cause more heartache. They should have left him on that beach to die.


End file.
